Activist investor, Carl Icahn, exercised his Netflix, Inc. (NASDAQ:NFLX) options to maintain his near 10% stake in the music and video stores company. Icahn exercised his American style call options at $36.05 per share for 4, 291,066 shares of common stock, to bring his total to 5,541,066 shares of common stock. Initially, Carl Icahn held 1.25 million shares of common stock in Netflix.
Carl Icahn was long 858,213 Netflix, Inc. (NASDAQ:NFLX) common stock shares through High River LP, while Icahn Partners LP was long 1,313,380 shares before finally exercising his right. Icahn Partners Master Fund LP was long 1,339,769 shares while Icahn Partners Master Fund II LP and Icahn Partners Master Fund III LP were long 541,248, and 238,456 shares of common stock in the TV Shows and Movies services company.
Netflix, Inc. (NASDAQ:NFLX) closed on Monday, 19 at $81.36 per share, implying that Carl Icahn was deep in the money when he exercised his options. The activist investor is known for his organizational change campaigns, as exhibited in some of the companies he holds large stakes in, such as Navistar International Corp (NYSE:NAV), Oshkosh Corporation (NYSE:OSK) Chesapeake Energy Corporation (NYSE:CHK), and The Procter & Gamble Company (NYSE:PG), in past events.
Netflix, Inc. (NASDAQ:NFLX) has 55,545,531 Shares of common stock outstanding, as of September 30, with approximately 54.28 million floated. The company has a market cap of $4.58 billion, which ranks it among mid cap companies while Enterprise value (EV) stands at $4.12 billion. Cash reported in Q3 stood at $798.35 million, or $14.37 cash per share.
Netflix, Inc. (NASDAQ:NFLX) faces competition from the eCommerce giant, Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN), which has a market cap of $105.52 and EV of $91.26 billion, making it a large cap. The California-based Netflix also faces competition from other privately held companies. They include: Blockbuster LLC, which filed for, Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 2010 and sold out to satellite TV service provider, DISH Network; and Redbox Automated Retail, LLC, which is based in Oakbrook Terrace Illinois, founded in 2003. The company is owned by Coinstar.
At the time of this writing, Netflix, Inc. (NASDAQ:NFLX) was trading at $82.15 per share, up $0.79, or 0.97% increase from yesterday’s close.
